The Mortal Question
by Madame Cyanure
Summary: Jack desperately needs to bring Ianto back. He will do what it takes, at any cost. Sequel to Painful Resolution, so it will make more sense if you read that first. Eventual Janto. x
1. Chapter 1

**Hello all! Firstly, I'm sorry this took so long for me to write; I got caught up in the personal terror of the exam period. :/ Secondly, well, enjoy and review! :D**** x**

The blood pounded through his veins; a cocktail of adrenaline, newly converted glucose, almost enjoyment, and fear. Shaken, not stirred, as he ran faster than he had ever done before. His breath came in jagged shards as his lungs struggled valiantly to keep up, his captors nearing ever-closer. He dived into a winding stairway, completely rejecting the stairs and choosing a freefall which for a fleeting second would have made Bond proud. Except then Jack found the ground. With his head.

The momentary blackout was followed by a resurrection so swift that it seemed almost rude, at which point Jack realised that he needed to move, and quickly. Scrambling to his feet, he scanned the room and snatched up his thankfully unbroken quarry. Jack felt automatically for a gun that he didn't have; the 9mm Glock discarded and empty at approximately one hundred and forty levels above him. It was time get out, considering that on this occasion the stereotypical heavies may have actually been smart enough to find the elevator and press the button without smashing it. Jack swung around bolted for the nearest exit, knocking the bleach blonde front-of-house receptionist into a wall before greeting the glaring sunlight at full pelt. A searing pain told Jack that the woman had shot him in the shoulder, but he forced himself to keep running until he had cleared the building. Then he dived for cover.

The deafening sound of a localised atomic bomb filled the air, preceded by a small glowing orange mushroom cloud and followed by a wave of heat that only added to the natural climate. Yvonne Hartman's own personal invention; securing the target whilst leaving the surroundings intact and unaware, possibly the only time any product of Torchwood One's sadism would ever be useful. Jack watched as a million splinters of glorified Arabic glass turned to ash. He sincerely doubted that its inhabitants had got out, but then again, after the things that he had seen inside those walls they possibly deserved it. Nobody said what he was doing would be pretty and this was a mess. That was all Jack's eternal life was at the moment. One big, catastrophic mess. And that was before he turned up in the Emirates.

He straightened up, hissing as his nervous system reminded him that adrenaline was no longer his best friend and that he was actually injured. Taking a deep, oxygen deprived breath Jack turned and walked calmly into the undisturbed throng of business people and holiday makers. Flipping the leather cover of his newly repaired vortex manipulator, he pressed a button and vanished.

Jack knew where he was before the disorientation faded; after all, it was the same dank low budget London 'apartment' he had based himself in for the past six months. Six months since he had run away, thrown himself from a Cardiff tower block, and discovered the truth. It seemed longer to Jack. He felt nauseous from the loss of blood, which was only heightened by the feeling of atom transplantation that Jack had long come to associate with short-range teleportation; even though it couldn't allow him to ignore the metaphorical gaping hole in his heart these days, the wound at least could sidetrack Jack for second. Because it was still Jack's fault that Ianto had died; Jack had murdered him, and the shooting had spurned from pure negligence on Jack's part. Even if Ianto had told Jack himself that Jack did the right thing, Jack carried the emotional burden as a reminder of what had been lost. To say that Jack missed Ianto was an understatement; he would tear the world apart to see Ianto alive again. Which was what would happen if Jack's plan went horribly wrong.

He staggered to the decrepit old sofa in the middle of the room, collapsing in another wave of dizziness into its once cushy padding. He knew that the bullet was lodged in his shoulder and had to come out; even if Jack killed himself to speed up the healing process, the shell was likely to stay in there unless he did something about it. Not that he was allowed to kill himself these days anyway, or even accidentally become dead long enough to be declared a murder victim; five seconds of relative time in the dark, alone, then out of it again feeling like he'd been slapped upside the head. It was like his Void Space was permanently occupied. Like someone was actively not allowing Jack little excursions for interdimensional chats. Somehow Jack believed Ianto to be involved. Jack let slip a snort, smirking at himself for the notion that it could be true. Jones, Ianto Jones, ever the Fixer; even when…there. How the hell could Torchwood manage without him?

Torchwood. Jack's ghostly smile faltered. He'd only been back once. Immediately after the morgue. To regroup, collect supplies, commandeer a years worth of weaponry, and make sure that they didn't touch Ianto; for the last, he'd left a note in the assumption that they wouldn't want to see him again. The only contact that Jack had had been with Martha Jones; she called Jack, not the other way round, and it had only happened twice. The first time was a lecture and a one-sided screaming contest, which forced Jack to tell her and thereby his ex-team mates, a diluted version of his intentions and to respectfully request that she left him to it. That was two weeks after Ianto had died. The second time that the phone rang, Jack was in Shanghai and he'd had to call her back due to the delicate nature of the, um, transaction he was dealing with. This time she was calm, but Jack could detect the distress in Martha's voice as she broke to him that Owen had died in the line of duty and she would therefore be replacing him as Gwen's second in command. Jack hung up on her, and it was a dead line from then on. Dead as everyone he would ever care about.

The increasing stickiness of Jack's shirt gradually broke through the silent salty tears of his thoughts, reminding him that action was the essence of the moment. At least when he was active there was less room for personal thoughts. He stripped so that he was naked from the waist up, flinging the shirt onto the bare linoleum in a way that would have caused a lover to scorn.

'You wouldn't mind so much if we were completely naked.' Jack whispered to the silence, before heading for the consistently depleted medical kit and a shower which yielded less water than the pathetic drizzle in the outside world. Everything stung, although the bullet was out and the water had ceased to be reddish-pink by the time Jack had finished.

Retrieving the item from his old clothing and pulling on a new t-shirt, Jack flung the bloodstained rags into the incineration pile as he dragged a chair across the room to his improvised workstation. He raised the item up to viewing height and turned it over in his palm; it was the same as the others, a metallic fragment that lay somewhere between a crystal and diamond. But at least that meant Jack knew what he was dealing with. He pulled out a stained and tattered old Torchwood file from underneath the various wiring systems, its well-thumbed pages practically reeking of the story of being read a thousand times before by the same person, in each different circumstance. Project Cerebrum; the flat-pack instruction manual for retrieving someone from the dead. This was the only stable thing currently in Jack's possession that even had a chance of bringing Ianto back to him, so Jack guarded it with his whole being. Just on the off chance that it would work. If not, he'd force it to see things his way and it wouldn't be a pleasant process for anyone.

Jack found the page he was looking for quickly. The premise of the Project was irritatingly simple; go on what amounted to be a global treasure hunt for twelve fragments, pray that not many people know the thing exists, and assemble the finished article around the body of the hopefully intact deceased. The fragments lay hidden and subdivided into three distinct categories; two for each sense, one cortex for higher thinking and, the most difficult to find, the one which empowered the device by connecting the heart and soul. Jack was currently staring at a hopeful designer's impression of the finished article, missing all but one half of touch and the power source. The diagram was partially covered up by a yellow sticky note of Ianto's neat scribble.

_Jack – Should you ever come back and decide that you actually want to know what is in your own Archives; PUT EVERYTHING BACK WHERE YOU FOUND IT! Although you may need to take a look at this file, because it could be dangerous in the wrong hands. I've hidden it non-sequentially so that neither I nor the other team members are unlikely to find it again, then I'm Level One Retconning myself. Please read it fully because something needs to be done about it. I've noticed that logic may help for this one. Ianto._

Jack hadn't got too far with the logic after the first piece; he had got further with brute force and the Torchwood systems. With two pieces left he was running out of resources, so this time it was the internet all the way. The search engine gave way to an encrypted file and Jack genuinely smiled as he found what he was looking for. One fragment in the convenient if not concerning care of Torchwood Two, Scotland, and the other would bring him full circle, more or less. Things seemed laughably easy.

One last road trip, and Jack could bring Ianto home. Alive again.

**First impressions? Please review. MC. x**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey! I know it's been a whilst before I tackled this story, but it has actually got a half decent plot now, so I'm kinda hoping that you guys don't think it is one of those sequel moments where it is not as good as the original lol. Read and review please. :) x**

**DISCLAIMER: Because I forgot it in the first chapter, here goes. If I owned Torchwood, I don't think I'd still be writing on a fanfiction site. x**

Jack was restless. Crowds made him feel vulnerable these days and he had made so many more enemies in the last six months that his paranoia at being an easy target was possibly justified. It really didn't help that London Victoria Station was thronged with commuters at this time of day either, although it wasn't like Jack had much choice in the matter. Since his little Arabic escapade last week, the Vortex Manipulator had been a little temperamental and the equipment which Jack needed to fix it was second on the list of the things he would procure from Archie. Even if it was only a blown fifty-first century fuse, the idea of public transport seemed more appealing than being scattered as atoms forty thousand miles from where he actually wanted to go. Air travel was out, because it made it easier to track his movements; any sensibly gifted hacker or teckie could tell you that, even with Jack's multiple fake aliases. And should Toshiko Sato ever have the slightest notion to find Jack, he was bordering upon screwed already. Which left Captain Jack Harkness, immortal ex-con and betrayed semi-high-ranking Time Agent, trying to catch a train to Scotland.

It wasn't embarrassing in the slightest, but Jack was still wary of the Trip as he stepped onto the newly arrived train and scanned for a vacant booth. Exposing himself to Archie in negotiations would leave Jack wide open to Gwen, even if subtlety was involved on Jack's part. Walking into Torchwood Two would put her on Jack's trail so fast that he may as well have put a tracking device on himself. And he really did not want the others to find him, not yet at least. He had resolved, in the final details of his plan last night that, as soon as everything was done and Jack had Ianto back in his arms, they would run away. They would leave Torchwood. A century of service was more than enough and Jack only had one shot at this; he would not bring Ianto back just to lose him all over again for some pointless, unworthy cause. Never again. Ever. And because Gwen had become so drawn into the complex spider's web that was Torchwood, she wouldn't understand Jack's reasons; this was the woman that hadn't even stopped loving the Institute when her boyfriend was apparently 'dead', or expressed the slightest concern that a beast with a vengeance could turn up at her forthcoming wedding, and frequently disobeyed Jack's command whenever she became curious about something. Now as acting Head of the Torchwood Institute, Jack imagined that Gwen would simply sigh, tell Jack he had become disillusioned and drag him back into the field until he could be persuaded otherwise. Jack didn't want that, and Gwen's presence was a good enough reason for him to avoid his ex-team mates for as long as possible. Jack just hoped that he could convince Archie to keep quiet about his visit.

Jack finally managed to select a seat, and settled down for a long and tedious journey as he tried not to remember the last time that he had reason to travel to Torchwood Scotland.

_*TW*TW*TW*_

After hours and hours of train changes and endless British scenery, Jack now stepped out of the final Glaswegian cab to face what appeared to be a dilapidated block of flats, East of Glasgow city centre. Of the three Torchwood base locations that had still managed to exist fully-functional in the twentieth century, Torchwood Two had moved house the most. The archival branch of the Institute had started out as a luxurious manor house in the Highlands, but that had only lasted until the Second World War, when they had ignored Jack's casual advice about not putting certain artefacts too close together; a rather explosive goodbye for the manor house. Then it was fronted by a beautifully ornate bank for a while until the financial crisis hit in the 1970s in which the bank went rather catastrophically bust. Finally, under Archie's prolonged leadership and very simple taste, Torchwood Two had moved here. Jack had to give the old man credit; Torchwood One was glassy and imposing, Torchwood Three had the fountain and underground sewer chique, but nothing tended to scare people off more than a slab of crumbling grey concrete. Sucking in a deep breath, Jack plastered on his best high-voltage smile and headed to the entrance.

Archie wrenched the door open after three buzzes of the crackling intercom, looking Jack up and down.

'Harkness.' He said with an air of disgust, 'With all due respect, sir, piss off.' Archie attempted to close the door, but Jack blocked it and got his foot crushed for his trouble.

'Archie, wait!' Jack hissed as the old man did not relinquish his mutilation of Jack's toes. 'You know that I wouldn't come back if it wasn't serious.'

Archie paused, and Jack could see that significantly more wrinkles had taken up residence on his forehead and engraved themselves around his eyes than the last time Jack had been up here visiting. Finally the pressure lifted as Archie opened the door wide again.

'Fine. But I don't have a wife for you to fuck or employees for you to bend over my desk this time round.' Answering Jack's enquiring expression, 'Gladys died about five years back and I fired the rest of them. I'm better of if it is just me and my filing systems.'

'I'm sorry.' Jack stepped inside, his eyes adjusting to the lower light levels.

'Don't be, because I know you're not.' Archie pointed to the steel doors of and elevator and hammered the lift-call button. 'In here.'

Once within the confines of the lift, Archie pressed the button for the top floor and the somewhat unsteady contraption gradually grinded upwards. The silence inside was icy and, whilst Jack longed to break it, he was not going to lay out his proposition in here.

'So, how is Nessie?'

Archie looked surprised at Jack's attempt at a casual change of topic before replying equally with the air of a friend discussing the weather. 'Happily eating tourists, last I heard.'

'And people aren't noticing?'

'If you can ignore a thousand year old rift-born dinosaur for years, a few missing tourists don't generally raise the concern of the general public. We Scots have a greater tolerance than the Welsh, Harkness.'

Jack snorted; whether out of humour or disgust, he couldn't tell. The slight was typical of Archie and an unsurprising act of racist patriotism from a long-standing member of Torchwood.

The elevator doors opened with a feeble ping to reveal what looked like the remains of a dusty old call centre; Jack knew the greater part of the Torchwood collection to be housed on all nine floors below and in three warehouses surrounding the area. This was Archie's domain. Jack allowed Archie to lead him into a wooden panelled office, with a door which comically said 'Manager' in chipped and crooked gold plate. Inside, nothing had changed since Jack's last visit seventeen years ago. It was still a jumble sale collection of messy order; everything was arranged with categorical precision and an Archivist's intent of working out the perfect place for each object. Jack assumed that it ran in the profession.

Archie negotiated his clutter with practised ease and lowered himself into a battered leather office chair, indicating that Jack should also sit. He cleared his throat before speaking, indicating to Jack that all polite conversation could leave the room at any second after the old man's next word.

'I heard about your staff troubles. Ms Cooper appears to be a much more informative Director than you ever were. Far too pro-active and emotional for my liking.'

'Yeah, she does that.' Jack kept his tone flat and emotionless. Archie enjoyed probing his subjects before getting to business – things tended to move faster if Jack didn't flare up and give Archie the satisfaction.

'Pity about Mr Jones – he was the only one I could stand to communicate with from that place, yourself included. It was either him or that arrogant arse of a medic who you employed.'

'I would rather you didn't speak of my staff in that way. Particularly as both Owen and Ianto are now dead.'

'I'm sure you would, although it's not like they are going to speak up against it now, are they?' Archie offered a cruel smile. 'Ms Cooper informed me about the circumstances of Mr Jones' death. It was a vicious play of Torchwood's hand on your part, Harkness.'

'Then you know why I am here, Archie.'

'Just because I know something does not mean that I know everything. What do you want?'

'I'm bringing him back. I'm going to resurrect Ianto.'

'Typical, Harkness; your selfish impulses for a quick shag won't let the dead stay dead. What is it with you and your Frankenstein fascination with making people as abnormal as you are?'

Jack pushed himself to his feet, hauling Archie up with him so that their faces were merely inches apart.

'I don't have to explain my motives to you or to anyone!' Jack snarled. 'The Cerebrum gear. You have a piece; I want it.'

'Those who want don't always get.' Archie snapped. 'You'll have to try a lot harder than that, Harkness! Only an idiot would use the Project. You are sorely wrong if you think that I am going to let technology like that slip out of my grasp and into your own ham-fisted, God-playing designs! You'll sooner be sleeping in your own grave before that happens.'

The look of pure disgust could have only reflected Jack's malcontent at failure. Neither man would pull a gun on the other, but once again they had reached a stalemate that they wouldn't leave alone. Instead, Archie continued.

'And what if you did bring him back, hmm? What then? Would you give him your life? A young man turned miserable outsider, you think he could spend his resurrection with you? Even I think that's fucking retarded!'

Anger roared up inside Jack and he dropped his hold upon Archie's tie, feigning that he was leaving. Then he promptly turned around, and hooked Archie on the nose with a sickening crunch.

'Go to hell.' Jack spat.

'You first.' Was the blood-muffled reply, 'Get out.'

Jack watched Archie make obscene gestures at him until the elevator doors clattered firmly closed. Letting out a hiss of angry excitement, Jack looked down as he uncurled his bloodied fist. In his palm he held a ring of nine small silver keys. Jack let out a small laugh of satisfaction. These were the keys to Archie's Mortality Store; access to the entire glory of restricted Torchwood Archives. Ianto was now one step closer to Jack.

**Opinions on chapter two would be very nice please. :) MC. x**


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